“I don’t know every Taliban fighter that lives in the area, you know, but I do know that every major commander or lieutenant there had his head cut off. Some of the warlords and a handful of the high-level drug bosses were among the dead. It was very systematic, like they had a list or some kind of intel. If that’s not bad enough, the people I talked to said white people did it.”
“As in American?” Kevin asked.
“That’s what they said. The people who live in these areas haven’t seen Americans like they do over here. You know, maybe a handful of raids have gone off in the area, but most of those were done at night. The average villager couldn’t pick out an American if you paid them. Whoever did this”—Rico pointed to the camera for emphasis—“is definitely not playing by any rules that I’ve heard about.”
“So what do we do now?” Kevin nudged Renee, who was wondering the same thing.
“Something’s not right here,” she began. “I mean, does anyone else think it’s strange that all roads seem to come back to Swift, and all of a sudden he gets called away? What do we know about General Nantz, and how in the hell does someone like Barnes plan the raid on Kamdesh without help?”
“Someone is helping him,” Kevin said, stating the obvious.
“I just don’t see Swift sanctioning a strike on an American FOB. Just doesn’t seem like his style,” Bones added.
“Maybe he didn’t go see Nantz of his own accord,” Renee said, thinking out loud. Like Bones, she was having a hard time seeing her boss as a traitor. “Either way, we have three targets right now and zero actionable intelligence. I have no idea who this Mason Kane is, or how he fits, but we know that there is a connection between Decklin, him, and Barnes.” Renee was trying to get a plan together.
“Rico, do you still have access to that CIA dude, what was his name?” Bones wanted to know.
“Smith, yeah, he still owes me a favor,” Rico said.
“Is he the one out of Bagram?” Bones asked.
“He was, but now he’s the station chief’s liaison. You know how rank has its privileges.”
“All right, guys, cut the shit. Rico, I want to know what the CIA isn’t telling us. Find out everything you can without making it too obvious. Kevin and I will focus on Mason. Bones and Tyler, that leaves getting a fix on Barnes up to you. We need to work quick on this.”
“We’re on it,” Bones said, and turned to walk away.
“Well, if you put it that way, I guess it’s time to go to work,” Rico said, getting to his feet.
“Hell yeah, let’s do this,” Tyler added.
“Hey, Rico, how about you shower first?” Renee said.
“You got it, boss.”
Kevin looked at Renee as the meeting broke up. He was about to say something when the phone on Renee’s hip vibrated. Holding up a finger to Kevin, she lifted the cell phone to her ear. “Yeah?”
“This is Captain Lane at the TOC. We just got a fax saying that Task Force 11 has located Mason Kane in Libya. I have no idea why they sent it to us, but apparently they are launching right now to grab him.”
“Any idea where they are taking him?”
“Well, the fax originated from a site somewhere in Chad, so I assume they will take him back there.”
“So no one else knows about this?”
“Looks that way.”
“Do me a favor and hold on to that information for a while. I’m heading to the flight line now. I need you to get me a flight.”
“Roger that.”
Renee felt her heart skip a beat as she hung up and jogged toward her room to grab her stuff. This was the opportunity she had been waiting for, and Renee knew that Mason might be the key to what was really going on. Now all she had to do was get to him before he was transferred out of the country.
CHAPTER 19
Sergeant First Class Harden stood at a window of the World Health Organization hospital in Pakistan and stared out at the marketplace below. A hot breeze brought up the rank smells of the unwashed and the charcoal smoke of the food vendors.
The azan, or Muslim call to prayer, drifted from a mosque’s loudspeaker. The muezzin’s amplified voice drifted over Peshawar’s cityscape in a rhythmic undulation that beckoned the faithful to worship.
It was ironic, he thought, that somewhere in the tribal regions, the last of the Taliban were listening to the same thing he was. Colonel Barnes’s squad had just spent four days sending these men a message in blood as they moved from district to district, killing anyone associated with the Taliban, and he knew that the squad only needed to push a little deeper into Pakistan’s violent tribal regions to completely destroy the last of their leadership.
It had been so easy to hack into the CIA and Pakistani Intelligence Service databases and take the information that they’d been collecting and storing for years. All the target data and operational information that he needed had been waiting for someone to use them, while the agencies that collected the data did nothing.
Drone strikes and limited military incursions into the area might placate their political masters, but while the generals sat on their hands, America was losing the war. As a soldier, he saw the needless deaths for what they were, a betrayal, and while others may have been content to sit idly by and wait for the troops to be pulled out, he had chosen a much different path.
Harden heard someone coming up the hallway behind him. He turned to see Jones walking toward him, dressed like a World Health Organization volunteer. The WHO was unknowingly providing them with a base of operations and the perfect cover.
This was one of the most effective hospitals in the region. A massive earthquake that was followed by a polio outbreak had opened the insular city to myriad foreign aid workers who utilized the hospital and its compound as a base to distribute medicine and inoculations to the region.
“The boss wants to talk to you.” Jones had been working nonstop for the past two days, deciphering the data from the attack in Afghanistan. Harden hated computers and was glad that his teammate knew what he was doing.
“You almost done with your thing?” he asked as they walked down the hallway, through a narrow corridor, and out into one of the courtyards.
“Yeah, I’m just putting the final touches on it before I pass out for a few days.”
Harden slipped his sunglasses off the top of his head and over his eyes as they walked out into the open. He hated the desert sun and wondered why they never got to fight someplace nice and cold. If the Cold War had escalated, the upside would have been the fact that they would have gotten to fight in a place that had more than two seasons and a lot less sand.
“I hope it works better than that Y2K deal that had everyone freaking out.”
“What I’m working on is going to make that look like an annoying pop-up ad. Remember what happened the last time you doubted my Jedi skills?”
“Yeah, let’s not talk about it,” Harden said as Jones opened the door to the team room.
The team had chosen the most isolated location and claimed they needed it to safely store the camera equipment they were using for a documentary. People were always helpful when offered the chance to be on TV. However, the downside of their cover was conducting phony interviews with the staff. Harden had given that shit job to Hoyt because of his lackluster performance in Kamdesh.
The team secured the area by placing a small “shim” camera above the room’s only door. The monitor sat offset from the doorway and there was always a member of the team “pulling guard.” For added security a claymore mine was mounted directly into the door with the detonator stationed at the listening post.
The room had rows of olive-drab cots lining both sides. Industrial lighting hung from exposed rafters and gave the room an institutional feel. Every cot had a soldier assigned to it and his gear was stowed neatly at the foot of the aluminum frame. The canvas cots had been designed during the Vietnam era, and Harden hated them because they were a bitch to put together.